Do we really need privacy anymore?

We SAY we value our privacy, and yet we give it up all over the place. I was recently in the market for a guitar amp, and now, two weeks after I bought it, I find ads for guitar amps and guitar-related product in the sidebar all over the place in sites totally unrelated to each other and having nothing much at all to do with music.

If you really valued privacy, you wouldn't be on Facebook because they seem to be working non-stop to find out things about you and to help their advertisers find out about you. They introduce security updates and other changes with privacy implications so regularly that they've virtually trained us not to look them over.

Outdoors, while it's not quite as bad as it is in the UK, we are under surveillance a good deal of the time, and one regularly hears on the evening news about crimes solved via some surveillance camera or other. We should be thinking, "If the camera saw them, has it ever seen ME?" but we don't.

While, under the law, there's no privacy when you're in public, a lot of us resent the idea that some person can see us but we can't see them, and that often are activities aren't just being observed but are being recorded.

If you really valued privacy, you wouldn't be on Facebook because they seem to be working non-stop to find out things about you and to help their advertisers find out about you. They introduce security updates and other changes with privacy implications so regularly that they've virtually trained us not to look them over.

Not really. But your phrasing does seem to imply that of course everyone is on it, including those who bitch about privacy issues. One (but only one) of the reasons I've never opened an account on it is because I realize what a privacy disaster it is; it's not just that the defaults are to no privacy, but that they systematically tear down any walls you do manage to put up on that site.

I figure it's about 50/50 that they'll go too far someday, and there will be a backlash. Though it certainly does seem as though many simply do not care.

I think most clinical psychologists would say that privacy figures into the concept of boundaries. If you can't declare aspects of your life private and expect those limits to be respected, your boundaries are weak and/or under attack.

A good part of the dysfunction involved in the codependency relationship is the disrespect of the one who believes they are helping of their subject's privacy.

Privacy has been moot since government tapped te phone lines. Nothing is private except an in person, low volume conversation in which no party divulges any details. Short of that, nothing is private.
We all have the option of leaving modern society to live in either isolation or Amish conditions. We choose technology and modern convenience over privacy.

You may have heard of ECHELON, described as a computer network that monitors virtually all electronic communications, though exactly what its capabilities are aren't clear and would be classified. It isn't an American system per se. Actually, it belongs to and is used by five allies:

It's commonly believed that ECHELON listens in on a huge proportion of electronic communications and, using pattern and speech recognition software, refers "interesting" conversations for further analysis. Basically, it is thought, if you use a word like "assassination" or "overthrow" in your conversation, your conversation will be further analyzed for additional indicators. Obviously, most of this further analysis is done by machine because the amount of data flagged has to be astronomical. In that sense, no person is likely going to be aware of an innocent discussion of theories about the JFK assassination but if it's a discussion of assassination the British Prime Minister or our American President or any other such hugely impactful seeming conspiracy, someone can probably expect either a knock on the door or the installation of listening devices into their home while they are out buying groceries.

Yeah, we do - it's what keeps you from walking in on me in the bathroom!

RE: "I find ads for guitar amps and guitar-related product in the sidebar all over the place in sites totally unrelated to each other and having nothing much at all to do with music."

That's because one of the sites you visited while shopping for your amp, placed a "cookie" in your browser - you can eliminate their influence by going into your browser's Preferences and finding and deleting it. I have usernames and passwords from various websites saved on cookies in my browser, and so, save those so I won't have to re-enter that info each time I access the sites, but otherwise, I go into my browser's cookies folder from time to time and delete all of the cookies I don't recognize.

Everything on the internet now is permanent. Governments don't last. Judgment is forever. What you wrote on a webpage might get you executed in 15 years. You have know real way of knowing. Sound ludicrous? I doubt the Polish Jews in 1933 would have believed anyone who told them what would be happening in ten years.

The fact is you absolutely cannot, cannot, cannot trust the government. America is not a permanent fixture. Therefore privacy is not only essential, it is one of the most precious resources that will exist in the future. The government enjoys it. You don't.

Having zero privacy means being completely invaded by external forces. No defense. No self. Just a mindless drone-cog in the machine. No individuality, susceptible to every type of manipulation.

Consider quote by H.P. Lovecraft

“The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents.”

The same principle holds true for the government. If it is able to correlate all of its contents (total invasion of all privacy), there will be zero mercy.